She is Screaming
by Arrington Blake
Summary: "All we have is hope that she'll stop screaming" When Caroline and Elena's girls night is interupted by one of Elena's nightmares, Caroline has the oppurtunity to watch the progression of Elena and Damon's relationship.


Raiting: K+  
Pairing: Damon Salvatore/ Elena Gilbert  
Timeline: Somewhere in the ambiguous middle of season two, sometime before Jeremy leaves.

Summary: _She is Screaming_"All we really have is hope that she'll stop screaming" During a girls night, that is ended by Elena's nightmare, Caroline watches a piece of progression of Elena and Damon's relationship.

Disclaimer: I do not own any part of _The Vampire Diaries_. This particular plot line is mine but the characters, setting, and love triangles belong to Kevin Williamson and his wonderful staff. Don't sue.

Authors Note: So here comes my second _Vampire Diaries_ fic. When I started writing fanfiction again, I decided on a firm 'no ask for review policy' but now that my first fic has a grand total of dun-duh-da two reviews, I have to say I could use some feedback. I am also on the search of a beta and a prompt list...so any help with that would be greatley appreciated. I really am desperate. My goal with this story was to show a picture of progression that we didn't see on the show. While Kevin williamson and his writers room did a fantastic job showing the progression of Damon and Elena's relationship, this was a snippet I really wanted to see, I hope I did it justice. Anyway, I hope you enjoy.

* * *

She is screaming.

The sharp, hoarse kind of screams that only come from someone that is being tortured

Or haunted.  
Or both.

They are radical and loud and lost.

The shrill wailing is all that Caroline can comprehend as she roles out of Elena's bed onto the floor in a mess of blankets and limbs, her own blonde hair caught around the front of her face like a blind fold. She scrambles up unsteadily, rubbing sleep from her eyes with her palms, wondering at the strange end to their girls night. Elena's murmurs and whimpers had started maybe five minutes before, but with super sensitive hearing Caroline had learned the necessity of blocking all sound out. She hadn't deemed the small, quaking noises important.

She hadn't realized that they were foreshadowing a war.

She's two steps away from the bed with her arms held open, ready to shake some reality into her friend (who is now curled up against the head board flailing her arms and legs in a way that depicts her fighting off an intruder…and loosing) ,when both doors to the room swing open.

Her history teacher rests against the frame of the door, that opens to the hallway. He stands in a messy illumination that comes from the pale lights that track down the stairs and along the hallway ceiling; his hair and white t-shirt are bed rumbled and there are permanant, buised, circles under his eyes giving the impression that these nightmares are a nightly occurrence. He instructs Caroline not to touch Elena, in a gruff voice, 'it'll make it worst', 'it's best to just wait on him'.

Caroline looks at Jeremy for answers. He's crouched down by the bathroom counter, rifling through the drawer, rattling orange pill bottles when he finds them, counting out a few pills in his hand; three small red ib profin and two long white one's she doesn't recognize. For a moment, she worries that the pressure has become to much, that he's going to revert to his old stoner ways and crush the capsules up with the soap dish, get high in front of her, escape the pain and fear illicited by his sister's actions the 'easy' way. But he tugs his red and black striped boxers straight, yawns, and walks over to the night stand, leaving a pile of the tablets beside a glass of water.

This is routine

"Did you call Damon?"

She sends Alaric a look complete with confusion and wide eyes, wondering why he would ask that kind of question when his 'like daughter' is crying and thrashing on the bed, Elena's screams fading into the background of their thoughts, due to repetition alone.

When Jeremy answers she realizes two things:

1) The question wasn't directed at her in the first place.  
2) She's entered the twilight zone.

Jeremy nods, a sharp movement, "about five minutes ago, I'm sure he's on his wa-"

The clump of boots against mud sneaks in underneath the screams in Caroline's ear "he's here" she interrupts. By the time she finishes the sentence, he's pushing in the door way beside Alaric.

She supposes locking the front door doesn't matter with predators like theirs. Whether they're invited in or not.

He strides in, stripping his boots as he kneels on the edge of the bed, painting Elena's hard wood floor with prints of muddy tred. The top button of his jeans is undone, the black silk of his boxers is showing through, their elastic band rising just above his jeans, and his charcoal shirt is inside out and backwards.

Caroline doubts he cares.

She watches as he climbs to the middle of the bed, catching Elena's flailing hands in his. Elena kicks harder. Yells louder. The wordless screams turning into cracked words, "stop" and "d-don't y-you remember?", follwed by "p-p-please", "pleeeeeeassssseee", "pleas-se".

It has to get worse before it gets better.

Caroline wonders why he can touch her, but she can't. Why Jeremy and Alaric have both left the room, silently, as if everything is solved. Like Damon is some sort of savior.

She is 99.9 percent sure that comparison has never been made before.  
Even if it's his families name sake.

Elena falls against Damon's chest after a moment. Still asleep. He's stroking her hair with his fingertips and whispering soothing promises in her ear, but they're so deep and round and quiet that Caroline can't make them out completely.

Something about safety and trust and 'I'm right here', 'wake up for me sweetheart'.  
Something like magic.

Elena's eyes fly open, the dark brown lost in azure blue, as she pulls at the back of his hair. Her hands are shaking and desperate. Her eyes needy. A whimper pulls out of her mouth and he shushes it away, pulling her even closer to his lap, wrapping her in his safety. Her deep inhales turn into ragged, starved, breaths; he leans to the night stand and picks up the glass of water and pile of pills Jeremy left there. He folds the pills into her hand and leads it to her mouth, as if he's taking care of a small child. Coaxing her to accept the cure. After a few moments, she sucks in a few lungfuls of oxygen, her breathing calms, and her heart rate returns to normal.

"I'm right here"

The words ring like an eternal promise.  
Caroline is sure they were meant too.  
Damon does very few things without thinking...where Elena is concerned, anyway.

It's a handful of minutes before they move downstairs. Caroline puts _Legally Blonde _into the DVD player and gives Elena an encouraging smile. Damon struts back into the living room hands Caroline a bottle of rum that he had balanced against his chest, Elena a cup of tea, and cradles a cup of coffee in his own hands.

The opening scene of sorority girls flits across the screen. Caroline wants to ask Damon if real sorority girls are like that, if the houses are really made of pink and glitter. Stab at him and distract herself from all her questions. But then she sees him settled behind Elena on the armchair that's made for one and a half, his arms curled around her.

One on her waist. One in her hair.

Safety.  
Possession.  
Need.

It does not escape her notice that this is the same chair she and Damon sat in, on a crashed date night that seems like a decade ago. The same chair where she curled a new scarf in one hand and sat the other firmly on his knee. Holding him there. Keeping him. As if she could.

But Elena wasn't her.  
Elena was a different story, entirely.  
Caroline is quite sure that Elena can hold Damon anywhere, with just a look. a word. a scream. a promise. a whimper.

"Does this happen often?" Caroline asks in a whisper, the effort at being quiet breaking the words so that they come out in pieces. Elena's eyes have just closed and Caroline doesn't want to wake her. She understands that sleep is a rare comodity now.

Damon stays silent for a thick moment; pulling the beige throw, up higher on Elena's shoulders, shifting the tea cup from its place wedged between her side and the arm of the chair onto the oak table beside them before answering.

"Five nights out of seven. They've gotten worst. We've adjusted," his voice is pained.

Elena's pain causing his own.  
It always has.

"What are they about?"

He doesn't hesitate, "Stefan I suppose. Death. Destruction"

She notices that the humor he tried to inject into his tone died.

She wonders when the brother Elena loved became the one to terrorize her; when the one to terrorize her became the one to love her.  
And realizes that that isn't an accurate description.  
Elena has always been terrorized of Damon's love for her.

But now she let him comfort her, hold her. She gives up her stoic, strength to be healed by him.  
Which says more than words or a stereotypical relationship ever could.

As Elle Woods trails on in the back ground about philanthropy and law school, Caroline sees only a charismatic girl in love with the wrong man. The man she thought was good.

Maybe, she muses, good, steady, and honorable isn't always the best choice. Too good to be true. Soemthing is always hiding behind the shine of their greatness.

Darkness has a past. A story. Maybe it isn't darkness really but honesty everyone else hides from the world, Caroline decides.

"What did you give her…earlier?" She asks, amused that their conversation is nothing more than scrapped questions – it sounds more like an interrogation. But she's curious, a little nosy and Elena's asleep, she doesn't see a better time to ask. To discover why the 'older Salvatore' has become a savior and a reliable one at that.

"Her anxiety meds and something for the headache" The answer is confused, questioning why Caroline asked, why she didn't know.

"Anxiety meds?"

"Over the counter, she refuses to go to the doctor. They help her get her breath back."

Caroline isn't aware she had ever lost it.  
That her friend's memories have turned into a cancer.  
That she is fighting to keep her head above ground.

"oh"

There's a thick silence, in which Caroline watches the way Damon strokes her friends hair, the way his eyes never leave her face, like she's the only thing in his world.

Who knew Damon's love for Elena would consume him.

Caroline knows her own relationship with Damon proved that, even when he was fake dating her, it was all for Elena. Or for Katherine, so he could leave Elena safe with Stefan. But still Elena.

"Where do we go from here?" Caroline asks, knocking back a gulp of burbon from the tall Salvatore crested bottle Damon had handed her "with the nightmares? How do we make them better? easier?" Caroline asks, her own eyes falling closed. She stretches out on the couch with a long sigh, feeling the couch cushions scratch against her legs.

"We hope"

Her eyes shoot back open to catch his gaze, desperate for understanding. He only has eyes for Elena.

Hope is all that's holding them together. All of them.  
Elena.  
Damon.  
Her.  
Jeremy.  
Alaric.  
Damon and Elena, the current _we_ people.

"All we really have is hope that she'll stop screaming."

* * *

A/N: I'd love your feedback.

xoxo,  
Arrington Blake


End file.
